


No Good, Very (Not so) Bad Day

by brewstr



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Meet-Cute, blood mention, it's fairly brief but it's there so be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 04:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12124611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brewstr/pseuds/brewstr
Summary: Ben's having one of those bad days where everything goes wrong. That's until he meets Caleb because of a bike crash.





	1. Chapter 1

Ben must have forgotten to set his alarm the night before because he woke up an hour late on Wednesday morning and launched himself from bed in a panic. Several things had to be cut from the morning schedule. Coffee and breakfast would have to go. A shower and a semi-clean outfit took priority. Shoes. Shoes would be a good thing to have. He felt like a preschooler when he put one on the wrong foot on his first try. The day was hot and by the time he got to work he was sweating and might as well have picked coffee over a shower.

Washington and Lee were in a tizzy over something or other and Sackett chewed him out when he ventured to ask what was wrong. The Keurig was out of water when he went at eleven to finally make himself a cup of coffee. He had to refill it but it took him a good five minutes to find the pitcher they used because somebody put it in the wrong cabinet. By then Sackett was shouting about something else and Ben had to give up on the coffee.

The interior decorator who was redoing the office asked him a million and one questions, half of which Ben didn’t have answers to. Then she wanted him to go to the antique auction with her to help her with the budget. Ben protested but Sackett thought it was a good idea and made him go. Twenty minutes into the auction Ben realized this woman didn’t give a shit about how much of his boss’s money she was spending but he managed to whittle the overdraft down to two hundred instead of six. He could live with that. Sackett would yell again but he could tune that out by now. He stood in by the door while the decorator directed her purchases to the truck and covered his face with his hand and pretended he didn’t notice the migraine pounding at his skull. Someone was talking to him and it took him an awkwardly long time to realize it was the auctioneer congratulating him on his purchases. He stammered a “thank you” and stopped listening when the man continued to talk. The interior decorator was smirking at him when he reached the truck and when Ben asked why she looked confused.

“Did you hear what he just said to you?”

“No,” Ben had to admit, “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“He said he would have liked to put up a bid for _you_.”

Ben was mortified. Not only had that poor man just clumsily hit on him, Ben was so distracted he had simply walked away without any sort of response. The interior decorator seemed to think the whole thing was deliciously funny but Ben couldn’t find it in himself to be amused.

Upon returning to the office Ben found a mountain of paperwork on his desk that he was pretty sure wasn’t there when he left. Sackett passed by, stopping just long enough to explain, “I need you to sort through those records, Ben. Figure out which to refile and which to pitch, will you.”

Ben glanced forlornly at the clock. Two-thirty. Well, at least he could sit down until quitting time. That was about how long this would take. Ben collapsed into his chair and threw what was left of his energy into sorting out the papers. Will Bradford sidled up after about twenty minutes. He was bored, probably, leaving what little work he was required to do unfinished. Ben could smell the coffee Will carried before he looked up. His stomach grumbled and he remembered that, in addition to the lack of coffee, he hadn’t eaten anything today either.

Will ignited knee-jerk irritation in Ben on his best days. Today he could feel his body tighten with it before Will even opened his mouth.

“That’s a lot of paper.”

Brilliant deduction, Poirot.

“Yep,” instead.

“Must suck to be an assistant. And you got passed over for that promotion last month, didn’t you?” He sighed dramatically. “Real shame.”

Will certainly had a knack for back-handed compliments. He liked to practice on them when he was bored. Ben sunk his teeth into his bottom lip and continued to scan the paper in his hand.

Will suddenly stepped forward to reach over Ben’s desk. “Huh, is that—”

He apparently forgot he was holding a mug of coffee which tipped when he bent over the desk, dumping a good cup’s worth over the stack of papers directly in front of Ben. Ben leaped up and backward to avoid being splashed with the hot coffee running off the desk unto the carpet and his shoes. He stumbled over his chair and nearly fell to the ground in the process.

“Oh…” Will said, looking stupid. He reached with his free hand to make a half-assed attempt to move some of the undamaged paper away from the spreading puddle.

“Don’t,” Ben said quickly. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll clean it up. You can—leave.”

Sackett came back out of his office while Ben was cleaning up.

“Really, Benjamin. You know I prefer you all not to have beverages on the desks, that’s what the kitchen is for.”

He clucked his tongue and was off before Ben got the chance to explain what happened. It was at this point that Ben gave up on the sorting. His desk was dry and only vaguely smelled of coffee with a hint of hazelnut creamer. Ben decided to go make his own cup of coffee while things were relatively quiet and he could get back to the papers after. He didn’t care if he didn’t finish today. A break and some coffee was what he needed right now.

He got a little too excited about the coffee and burned his tongue.

Five o’clock finally rolled around and no force of nature could keep Ben from getting out of there. Unfortunately, Janet From the Front Desk was an otherworldly force and Ben remained an excruciating twenty minutes listening to her trash-talk family members he would never meet and couldn’t care less about.

Ben was crossing a shopping plaza on the walk home when he got a string of texts from Mary with pictures of the new kittens she and Abe adopted. Ben moved to sit on a bench and look through the pictures. He hardly noticed he was smiling for the first time that day.

A biker darted past him and caught his eye. Ben looked up just in time to see rider and bike collide with one of the trees that decorated the plaza. The bike struck the tree at an angle as the rider attempted to swerve too late. He was thrown sideways off the bike, tumbling over before sort of skidding to a stop. Horrified, Ben leaped up and rushed to help, Passersby looked on doubtfully, unsure whether amusement or concern was appropriate. Ben pulled the man to his feet by his left arm.

“Dear god, are you okay?” Ben asked, a hand remaining on the arm. It was firm beneath Ben’s hand and he tried not to let it distract him. The guy was bearded and short, with a solid, rather pleasing, build. He wore a gray t-shirt and ripped jeans. Ben wondered if the smaller rip on the left knee was a new one.

The man held a hand to the right side of his face and groaned an affirmative, which was not at all convincing. Ben shocked himself when a laugh escaped him. In truth, it was more of a giggle, and a couple more slipped out before he could control himself. The uncovered eye flicked up at him incredulously.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“No—yes—I’m sorry,” Ben scrambled. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—I’ve just had such a long day and—“

Oh, shut _up,_ Ben!

“Hey,” the man waved him off with a snort, “Don’t sweat it. I’m sure it was funny. Besides,” he added, “it’s a nice laugh.”

Ben’s breath caught. The man’s right hand dropped from his face. It was a nice face. But Ben was immediately saved from the need to reply. He saw blood was seeping from nasty-looking scrapes on the man’s cheek and temple.

“Oh, my god, you’re bleeding,” he gasped.

The man looked at his hand and saw the blood on it. He made a small, almost disinterested noise and moved to wipe the blood on his jeans.

“Wait, don’t do that,” Ben stopped him with a touch. “I have napkins—don’t ruin your jeans.” Ben fumbled with his bag, searching for the napkins. With his head down he didn’t see the man regarding him with amusement. Ben produced the napkins and the man used one to wipe the blood from his hand.

“Can you hand me the bottle from my bike?”

Ben jumped to comply, and found the bottle in the strap attached to the bottom tube. He handed it to the man and who wet the napkins with water from the bottle and used them to dab the blood from his face, wincing a little as he did so. Ben returned to right the bike, toeing the kickstand into position.

“Your bike’s okay,” he concluded after a quick inspection.

The man looked up when Ben turned around to face him again. He still looked amused and now a little baffled. Ben noticed how the corners of his eyes screwed up sweetly when his smile widened.

“Oh, good. I can deal with a broken face better than a broken bike.”

“You’re not hurt too badly?” Ben wanted to confirm, feeling inexplicably responsible for this man’s welfare.

“Nah,” he shook his head good-naturedly as he crumpled up the bloodied napkins. “Just some scrapes and bruises. And a little injured dignity. Not that I had much of _that_ left anyway.”

Ben realized a moment late that it was okay to laugh this time, so his reaction was slightly delayed.

“Thank you, by the way,” the man said, gesturing with the balled up napkins.

“Oh, don’t mention it,” Ben answered, a little absently because he was studying the scrapes on the man’s face. It looked bad. He pointed at it and said, “You might want to clean that up properly. Get some witch hazel or Neosporin on it.”

The man laughed outright this time, startling Ben. He noticed and looked apologetic, but continued to smile.

“I’ll do that. Thanks for your concern…” His tone ended in a question and he cocked his head a little. Ben realized he was asking for a name.

“Ben. I’m Ben.”

“Well, thank you, Ben. I’m Caleb.”

They exchanged awkward smiles. Then Caleb spoke suddenly:

“I might have to run to the drugstore for the, uh—you said witch hazel—but what was the other one?”

“Neosporin.”

“How do you spell that?”

“N-E—“

“Wait, why don’t you write it down.” Caleb shoved his hand into his pants and produced bent pad of sticky notes and a golf pencil, handing them to Ben. Ben cupped the pad in his hand and just put the pencil to it when Caleb added, “You can put down your number, too, if you like.”

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. The corners of Caleb’s eyes were screwed up again and he bounced on his toes when Ben looked at him.

“You know how it’s spelled.”

Caleb’s nose wrinkled when he nodded. It was adorable. The pencil hovered over the pad in half a moment’s hesitation, more to tease rather than to deliberate. With a smile and a shake of the head, Ben scratched down his number and returned the pad to Caleb.

“I’ll text you,” Caleb said with a one-shoulder shrug, “we could do something, anything. And you could laugh at me again.”

Ben could feel his ears and the apples of his cheeks warming, he knew they were probably bright pink.

“Sounds fun.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.”

Caleb walked around him to the bike, mounting and kicking up the stand.

“You know, you should probably wear a helmet.”

Caleb laughed, “Sure. You got any more suggestions for me?”

Ben paused for a second, working up the courage to say, “Yeah—text me soon.”

“You got it.” Caleb grinned and winked.

Caleb pedaled off, leaving Ben standing by the tree in the evening sunlight. A breeze picked up and rustled through the leaves overhead. The weather had cooled considerably. Ben started again in the direction of his apartment, feeling buoyant and a little giddy. His day may have started out on the wrong foot but now all of it seemed to melt into insignificance. Sure, he’d only just met the guy and there was always the possibility that he’d never hear from him. But the prospect was exciting, warming. Today wasn’t such a bad day, and tomorrow might be even better.


	2. Epilouge

Months later someone at a party asked Ben and Caleb how they met. The story unraveled from the both of them with lots of laughter and plenty of interruptions on both sides until Caleb said:

“I was so embarrassed.”

Ben looked at him in surprise—unaware of this detail of the story.

“ _You_ were embarrassed? I didn’t know that was possible.”

Caleb laughed.

“I was though! You wanna know why?”

“Why?” Everyone around chimed, but now Caleb was really only talking to Ben.

“’Cause I was looking at you when I crashed,” he began to explain. His eyes lit up humorously when Ben looked confused. “I saw you walking as soon as I got to the plaza. I saw you stop and sit on the bench and I watched you smile at your phone. I was thinking about how beautiful you were and wondering what was making you smile. I figured that you’d just be another cute guy I saw in passing that I'd daydream about for the rest of the day but then I crashed and it was you who came over. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and that’s because I was looking at you. It was embarrassing.”

They watched each other for a few moments, and in that time it was as if there was no one else in the room. A smile twisted onto Ben’s face and he put a hand up to cover his grin.

“Now you’re embarrassed,” Caleb teased.

Ben nodded and let Caleb pull him closer to kiss his face. Everyone laughed and all thought the whole thing was sickeningly cute. Ben and Caleb didn't seem to even notice that anyone else was around. Caleb had his head on Ben's shoulder as he sighed with laughter and Ben was still shaking his head.

"You're so stupid."

"You love me."

"Yeah, I do."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops I just realized I named this chapter "prologue" initially bc I posted this at 2am and I'm a jackass :)


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